6 Types of iPhone Apps That Kill Your Battery (and How to Stop Them)

Battery life is one of the most important aspects of modern smartphones; and thankfully, Apple and other OEMs have increasingly bumped up battery longevity on newer smartphones. But battery life isn't just dependent on whether you have the newest model. Your own battery life may vary wildly depending on your own smartphone and app usage. That being said, there are six types of apps that are known to be bad for battery life. Continue reading to learn about the 6 Types of iPhone Apps That Kill Your Battery (and How to Stop Them).

6 Social Media Sites

There’s no doubt that social media platforms are popular, but they can be particularly bad for your battery life. While Facebook is a notable offender, apps like Snapchat and Instagram don’t fare much better.

Specifically for Facebook, you can try uninstalling the app, and then use Safari to use the social media site instead. You can head to Facebook.com and use the Add to Home Screen trick via the Share Sheet in Safari to make it more convenient.

5 Third-Party Browsers

Browser preference is a matter of personal opinion. But while many people use Google Chrome, it is pretty infamous for being a big-time battery killer — especially when compared to Safari. That’s just simply because Safari is more closely integrated with iOS. But Google Chrome isn’t the only offender, either.

Many third-party browsers, like Firefox, are just battery-intensive apps – there’s no way around it.

Switching to Safari is one of the biggest ways to save battery life.

If you aren’t willing to do so, at least make sure Background App Refresh is off and Location Services is set to While Using for your third-party browsers.

4 Location-Based Apps

Many apps use your location for one thing or another. But for this category, we’re talking about apps that are predominantly navigation- or location-based. It turns out that most of these apps are poison for battery life.

That includes third-party navigation apps like Google Maps or Waze, of course. But ride share apps like Uber are also terrible for your battery life. For Uber specifically, that’s because Location Services is set to "Always" by default.

Like with social media apps, you’ll want to go to Settings > Privacy > Location and make sure that these apps are set to While Using. Otherwise, they’ll continue to eat up battery life — even if you’re not actively navigating or calling a rideshare.

3 Communication Apps

Most communication apps can end up draining your battery, which is largely due to the fact that they always search for new content in the background. For the purposes of this piece, we’ll focus on two: Skype and Mail.

You’ll want to turn off Background App Refresh for apps like Skype, which is notoriously bad for iPhone battery life. Of course, this negates some of the convenience of that app — which is why switching to FaceTime may be a good idea.

Even first-party communication services, like Mail, can drain your battery. But there’s an easy way to mitigate it. Just go to Settings > Mail > Accounts > Fetch New Data. Fetch will eat up battery life, so set it to a longer time interval to decrease battery drainage.

2 Music Apps

We can’t speak for all music-based apps, but it’s worth noting that third-party music streaming platforms like Spotify are bad for battery life. Though they’ve gotten better, they can still be a big drain on your iPhone’s power.

Based on user reports, that may be because of new features — or bugs — introduced via app updates. Spotify should be working to fix these, so make sure your app is always kept up-to-date should they roll out a fix for the issue.

Also, try using these services on Wi-Fi, which will use up less data (and power) than Cellular.

Downloading songs for offline playback is even better.

As with most apps on this list, also consider disabling Background App Refresh.

1 Find Your Own Battery Killers

Many users have relied on personal experience or third-party anecdotal information to figure out which apps are the worst for battery life. But that doesn’t have to be the case.

There’s actually a section in Settings that breaks down which apps are eating up the most battery life for you. Just open Settings and tap on Battery. In iOS 11.3 and newer, this menu will also let you know what specific functions of the app are eating up so much battery.

In addition to app battery usage information, the Battery Health section also has other power-saving analysis and tips. For example, it’ll let you know if your brightness is too high.